Reading 1001 discussion

Rating: 4 Stars
Read: April 2017

This books tells the coming-of-age story of Gogol, a boy born to Indian immigrants, and how he came to acquire his name. It gives an accurate depiction of the conflicts and challenges faced by first-generation Americans. Gogol feels disconnected to many of the traditions of his parents yet also finds it difficult to assimilate to the dominant culture. I imagine that much of this insight came from the author's own experiences as a 1st-generation Asian-American. Lahiri does a great job with character development and showing the relationships between characters. I loved learning more about the Indian culture and traditions. I do wish that a larger part of the book was set in India, though. My only real criticism, and it is minor, is that she can sometimes get a little too over-descriptive with trivial details.

Read April 2021
I loved this story of the second generation immigrant experience that centers around our Main Character feeling conflicted around a name that reflects neither his Bengali heritage nor his American birth. Gogol is a young man who we follow from kindergarten up to his 30's. He is uncomfortable in his own relationship to his heritage and is also uncomfortable in his American inheritance and really hates his name "Gogol", which he changes when he goes to college to Nikhil. I found his confusion and the subsequent decisions that he makes about his life based on these confusions to be very honest reflections of anyone growing up and the Bengali traditions added a rich layer to that process. There is very little plot. The book is largely built around character development and told in the third person present tense largely with an eye on Gogol. Even when Lahiri could have made something dramatic she works to warn you ahead of time to lessen the tension, or she simplifies it or to even out and out skip it rather than make it a dramatic moment. In this way, deaths or rejections are simply part of life. The one exception to this is a train tragedy that happens to Gogol's father which explains his son's being given his name. One incident that reverberates half way around the world and far far away in time. That also seems honest to life.
I gave it 5 stars

Read July 2021

This is a well written and very readable family story. In it Lahiri explores the American immigrant experience (specifically, an educated South Asian family) and that of their children (first generation Americans). There were a lot of things I particularly enjoyed in this novel, but I think the stand out for me was how Ashima, a traditional bride of an arranged marriage, comes into her own late in life. 4*

Read this in 2013, Here is my review; What the book is about: The book is about a woman from India who marries by arrangement and then comes to America to live with her husband. She has two children. Mostly the story follows the oldest, the son. The story is of the experience of immigration, children born in America who take on ways of the land where they are born. The title tells us of the importance of naming their son for the parents, his rejection of that name. Their son is named Golgol through a series of events that prevent his parents from naming him they way he would have been named in India.

This is the author’s debut novel and is set in Calcutta, Boston and New York City. Her writing is nice and easy and this is a fast read. The characters are well developed and the story puts you into the heart of this family that struggles with adapting to a new culture and raising children who live in the world of their parents in the home and the America outside the walls of their home.

Namesake is a story of Indian immigrants to US. It follows a young couple adapting to American life and raising a family of two children: Gogol (namesake of famous Russian author) and his younger sister Sonia. The Ganguli family starts a life as complete strangers to local way of life, but during years they gain new friends and accommodate to cultural life which surrounds them. It compares first and second generation of immigrants and their lives in the US.
Even though it is very readable, I did miss sometimes a further development of character or their thoughts. I also didn’t enjoy much in the plot development. It is very often too fast, while at some point it gets too slow. My rating: 3 stars.

Here is a story that offers an answer to an old question - “What’s in a name?” - and from there examines the idea of identity and cultural ties through a family of educated Bengali immigrants to the US. Gogol Ganguli is named after his father’s favourite author - a name that is only intended as a nickname, neither American nor Bengali, but becomes legally his. As he grows older, he tries to cast off the hated name and its associations, but finds that reinventing yourself is never as easy as it sounds.

Lahiri deals very skilfully with the constraints and inter generational clashes of immigrant families, and her characters are nuanced and likeable. There are the parents, Ashoke and Ashima, who come from Calcutta to build a life in the US, but find reassurance in retaining familiar customs and building friendships with other Bengalis in similar circumstances. Meanwhile the children assimilate American ways and assert independence, yet are aware of their different background as both a blessing and a hindrance as they try to figure out where they belong.

These struggles are described with warmth and sympathy, and the reader is engaged with the family through the details of their everyday life, punctuated with episodes of great joy or tragedy. This was a very readable and entertaining novel, touching without being sentimental, and I really cared about the fate of the characters.